Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Related legal acts

Key definition

Public benefit definition

What does Public benefit mean? In charity law, public benefit is the test used to decide whether a purpose qualifies as charitable and merits registration and associated tax reliefs. It asks both whether there is an identifiable benefit (not outweighed by detriment) and whether that benefit is available to a sufficient section of the public; any private benefit must be incidental. England & Wales: Under the Charities Act 2011, a purpose is charitable only if it falls within the descriptions in section 3(1) and is for the public benefit (section 2(1)). There is no presumption of public benefit. Key authorities include Oppenheim (personal nexus limits the...

Charitable status and the public benefit requirement under the Charities Act 2011: evidence, access, charges, private benefits and the poverty exception (England and Wales)

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Practice notes

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So far there has been no fully convincing judicial definition of a charity, though the ordinary person likely has a fair sense of what it means. The common thread in the various definitional efforts is that it involves a gift and is directed to general public use. Yet, gifts are not invariably for public use, which is why a gift must serve a charitable purpose. A purpose is not charitable unless it satisfies the public use ('benefit') test. That public benefit test has been expressed as the proposition that it must benefit the community, or a segment of the community; conversely, a trust is not charitable if it delivers only private benefits. Accordingly, even where a client appears to fall within a charitable purpose heading, they may still be refused registration as a charity if the public benefit requirement cannot be met. For practitioners, a further difficulty is that the Charities Act 2011 (CA 2011) contains no definition of public benefit, offering no statutory clarification of what the test demands in practice, for applicants and those advising on trusts...

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Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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